For a Joint Fortieth Birthday

for Barnaby

If we’re in the same boat, call it an ark:
For forty days and nights”about six weeks
Of thunder, water roar, and windy shrieks,
Of hiss, growl, moo, oink, trumpet, purr, and bark”
We’ve scanned a horizon on which none can mark
The scumble of an island’s mountain peaks,
And every night a springing of fresh leaks,
And every dawn a bailing out of dark.
Exciting, sure”since everything’s at sea,
Like youth, when all the ancient past is sunk
And future has no firm geography;
But there’s an end to every quarantine”
Rainbows, new cities to be peopled, wine
To be discovered yet, and Noah drunk.